Wireless electricity: The wave of the future?

Dan Rodricks's commentary "Big fix: Buried power lines, anyone?" (Sept. 4) offered a creative idea to improve America's infrastructure. But something more radical is needed. Flooding or other environmental problems could still disturb buried power lines. Wireless electricity could solve the problem of transmitting electricity in a way that is both safe and economically sound.

In the early 1900s, Serbian inventor Nikola Tesla saw wireless electricity as the wave of the future. In a speech he said "We must be able to transmit things from other places over long distances — pictures, the news [and] energy."

Today, a number of entrepreneurs are trying to do exactly that. Instead of investing in underground lines, we should put money into this revolutionary form of power transmission.

As Mr. Rodricks suggests, money from the national defense budget could fund the development of wireless electricity. Once commercial products were refined, energy could be transmitted to ordinary homes and businesses nationally.

Mr. Tesla's idea of wireless power would not only transform America, it could transform the world into a place where everyone had more freedom to do what they wanted.